I got this today from my favorite precious metal broker, Susan Sierra. I was asking about why we see these days where the price of gold will just plummet. This is a letter written to Dennis Gartman.
Dear Dennis,
Hope you are well. Regarding yesterday's action in the precious metals, I have a different take on this than you do. As I have very intimate details of yesterday (and) think it was indeed official selling. At the London fixing, an order came in to sell 3 million ounces of gold and it was explicitly ordered to be done in just a few minutes. No investor or speculator would (1) handle it this way, (2) do it at the fixing only.
This has happened this way three times in the last year, yesterday being the fourth time. Bernanke had done nothing yesterday to trigger this the way it happened. I have done this now for thirty years, and this was no free market. We will find out one day.
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This is just amazing to me. Apple is now selling more iPads than any OEM is selling PCs.
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If Modern Humans Are So Smart, Why Are Our Brains Shrinking?
Here are some leading theories about the why the human brain has been getting smaller since the Stone Age.
by Kathleen McAuliffe; illustrations by Stuart Bradford
From the September 2010 issue; published online January 20, 2011
John Hawks is in the middle of explaining his research on human evolution when he drops a bombshell. Running down a list of changes that have occurred in our skeleton and skull since the Stone Age, the University of Wisconsin anthropologist nonchalantly adds, “And it’s also clear the brain has been shrinking.”
“Shrinking?” I ask. “I thought it was getting larger.” The whole ascent-of-man thing.
“That was true for 2 million years of our evolution,” Hawks says. “But there has been a reversal.”
He rattles off some dismaying numbers: Over the past 20,000 years, the average volume of the human male brain has decreased from 1,500 cubic centimeters to 1,350 cc, losing a chunk the size of a tennis ball. The female brain has shrunk by about the same proportion. “I’d call that major downsizing in an evolutionary eyeblink,” he says. “This happened in China, Europe, Africa—everywhere we look.” If our brain keeps dwindling at that rate over the next 20,000 years, it will start to approach the size of that found in Homo erectus, a relative that lived half a million years ago and had a brain volume of only 1,100 cc. Possibly owing to said shrinkage, it takes me a while to catch on. “Are you saying we’re getting dumber?” I ask.
Hawks, a bearish man with rounded features and a jovial disposition, looks at me with an amused expression. “It certainly gives you a different perspective on the advantage of a big brain,” he says.
After meeting with Hawks, I call around to other experts to see if they know about our shrinking brain. Geneticists who study the evolution of the human genome seem as surprised as I am (typical response: “No kidding!”), which makes me wonder if I’m the world’s most gullible person. But no, Hawks is not pulling my leg. As I soon discover, only a tight-knit circle of paleontologists seem to be in on the secret, and even they seem a bit muddled about the matter. Their theories as to why the human brain is shrinking are all over the map.
Some believe the erosion of our gray matter means that modern humans are indeed getting dumber. (Late-night talk show hosts, take note—there’s got to be some good comic material to mine here.) Other authorities argue just the opposite: As the brain shrank, its wiring became more efficient, transforming us into quicker, more agile thinkers. Still others believe that the reduction in brain size is proof that we have tamed ourselves, just as we domesticated sheep, pigs, and cattle, all of which are smaller-brained than their wild ancestors. The more I learn, the more baffled I become that news of our shrinking brain has been so underplayed, not just in the media but among scientists. “It’s strange, I agree,” says Christopher Stringer, a paleoanthropologist and expert on human origins at the Natural History Museum in London. “Scientists haven’t given the matter the attention it deserves. Many ignore it or consider it an insignificant detail.”
But the routine dismissal is not as weird as it seems at first blush, Stringer suggests, due to the issue of scaling. “As a general rule,” he says, “the more meat on your bones, the more brain you need to control massive muscle blocks.” An elephant brain, for instance, can weigh four times as much as a human’s. Scaling is also why nobody seems too surprised by the large brains of the Neanderthals, the burly hominids that died out about 30,000 years ago.
The Homo sapiens with the biggest brains lived 20,000 to 30,000 years ago in Europe. Called the Cro-Magnons, they had barrel chests and huge, jutting jaws with enormous teeth. Consequently, their large brains have often been attributed to brawniness rather than brilliance. In support of that claim, one widely cited study found that the ratio of brain volume to body mass—commonly referred to as the encephalization quotient, or EQ—was the same for Cro-Magnons as it is for us. On that basis, Stringer says, our ancestors were presumed to have the same raw cognitive horsepower.
Now many anthropologists are rethinking the equation. For one thing, it is no longer clear that EQs flatlined back in the Stone Age. Recent studies of human fossils suggest the brain shrank more quickly than the body in near-modern times. More important, analysis of the genome casts doubt on the notion that modern humans are simply daintier but otherwise identical versions of our ancestors, right down to how we think and feel. Over the very period that the brain shrank, our DNA accumulated numerous adaptive mutations related to brain development and neurotransmitter systems—an indication that even as the organ got smaller, its inner workings changed. The impact of these mutations remains uncertain, but many scientists say it is plausible that our temperament or reasoning abilities shifted as a result.
Numerous phone calls later, it dawns on me that the world’s foremost experts do not really know why our organ of intellect has been vanishing. But after long ignoring the issue, some of them have at least decided the matter is of sufficient importance to warrant a formal inquiry. They have even drawn some bold, albeit preliminary, conclusions.
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This article is in the context as the letter I just posted to Gartman. It has a lot of charts so I figured I would just post a link.
The Face of Volatility
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Here is another example of completely stupid laws. If the state of Arkansas thinks shipping wine would increase underage drinking, they are truly delusional. As someone who was once an a teenager who drank beer, laws don't keep it from happening.
Shipping Ban Hampers Arkansas Wine Tourism
By Jan Cottingham
3/5/2012
The state of Arkansas is seeking to promote Arkansas wineries, particularly the ones around Altus in Franklin County, as tourist destinations. It features a handy guide to Arkansas wineries on the state's Parks & Tourism website.
But Arkansas wineries say the biggest hurdle to developing tourism is the state law that prohibits them from shipping their wines out of state. Unless the law changes, they say, Arkansas wineries will never see the success of the hundreds of wineries in states like Missouri, Oklahoma, Texas and North Carolina. And the state of Arkansas will miss out on the kind of economic development that those wineries bring to their states.
Michael Langley, director of the Alcoholic Beverage Control Administration, flatly calls any potential legislative initiative to change the law a "non-starter."
That's because, he said, "You have liquor stores and liquor wholesalers who would oppose such a situation. Plus you have the governor who has consistently stated his opposition to it in the sense of allowing access to minors to alcohol."
In any power struggle between wine producers and liquor distributors, determined to retain their near-monopoly, the distributors usually win.
Compounding the political reality is the tangle of blood and marriage ties among at least four of Arkansas' better-known wineries and a long history of rivalry that has been variously compared to the Hatfields and McCoys or the Montagues and Capulets.
Stir into this mix the state's antique, arcane and confusing liquor laws, and two clear conclusions emerge: Bringing Arkansas' wine industry into the 21st century would be a challenge, and it's a challenge that all Arkansas wineries agree is necessary to truly develop wine tourism in the state.
Wine Tourism Takes Off
"Any state that takes their wine industry seriously must have a wine-shipping bill," said Michael Post, CEO of Mount Bethel Winery in Altus.
The inability to ship wine out of state is the top complaint of visitors to Post Familie Vineyards & Winery in Altus, said Tina Post McAlister and her brother Joseph Post. McAlister is in charge of retail sales and events, and Joseph is Post Winery's outside sales manager.
Thirty-nine states and the District of Columbia currently allow winery-to-consumer shipping, according to Free the Grapes!, a nonprofit that seeks "to remove restrictions in states that still prohibit consumers from purchasing wines directly from wineries and retailers." And Americans' consumption of wine has continued to grow, despite the economic downturn.
In recent decades, small wineries have bloomed throughout states like Missouri, North Carolina, Virginia, Texas and even in Oklahoma. As their numbers have grown, so has wine tourism. The increase in tourism has had a huge economic impact, officials in winery-friendly states say.
Peter Hofherr, CEO of St. James Winery in St. James, Mo., served as director of the Missouri Department of Agriculture in 2002-05.
Tourism and agriculture are the top two industries in Missouri, Hofherr said. "So there's been a concerted effort by the wineries to engage with tourism at the state level. That has evolved over the years to a strong partnership and has resulted in quite a few pieces of legislation to encourage that from the wine side as well as partnerships with the tourism organizations."
To help fund promotion of the wine industry in Missouri, the General Assembly approved a tax of 6 cents a gallon on all wine sold in the state, Hofherr said. In addition, the wine industry worked with the state to increase highway signage indicating the presence of local attractions, including wineries. "That really helped," he said.
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Oh this just pisses me off. I continue to post about the government's involvement in raising our children. My kid will never eat this garbage. Nothing to see here, big brother knows best.
Pink Slime For School Lunch: Government Buying 7 Million Pounds Of Ammonia-Treated Meat For Meals
Pink slime -- that ammonia-treated meat in a bright Pepto-bismol shade -- may have been rejected by fast food joints like McDonald's, Taco Bell and Burger King, but is being brought in by the tons for the nation's school lunch program.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture is purchasing 7 million pounds of the "slime" for school lunches, The Daily reports. Officially termed "Lean Beef Trimmings," the product is a ground-up combination of beef scraps, cow connective tissues and other beef trimmings that are treated with ammonium hydroxide to kill pathogens like salmonella and E. coli. It's then blended into traditional meat products like ground beef and hamburger patties.
"We originally called it soylent pink," microbiologist Carl Custer, who worked at the Food Safety Inspection Service for 35 years, told The Daily. "We looked at the product and we objected to it because it used connective tissues instead of muscle. It was simply not nutritionally equivalent [to ground beef]. My main objection was that it was not meat."
Custer and microbiologist Gerald Zernstein concluded in a study that the trimmings are a "high risk product," but Zernstein tells The Daily that "scientists in D.C. were pressured to approve this stuff with minimal safety approval" under President George H.W. Bush's administration. The USDA asserts that its ground beef purchases "meet the highest standard for food safety."
Controversy surrounding "pink slime" stems from various safety concerns, particularly dangers associated with ammonium hydroxide, which can both be harmful to eat and has potential to turn into ammonium nitrate -- a common component in homemade bombs, according to MSNBC. It's also used in household cleaners and fertilizers.
In 2009, The New York Times reported that despite the added ammonia, tests of Lean Beef Trimmings of schools across the country revealed dozens of instances of E. coli and salmonella pathogens.
Between 2005 and 2009, E. coli was found three times and salmonella 48 times, according to the Times, including two contaminated batches of 27,000 pounds of meat.
A public outcry against the "slime" is led perhaps most prominently by celebrity chef Jamie Oliver,
who had also successfully waged war against flavored milk in Los Angeles schools and continues a crusade for healthier school lunches.
News of the USDA's plan to bring 7 million pounds of "pink slime" to school cafeterias nationwide comes just weeks after the government announced new guidelines to ensure students are given healthier options for school meals. The new standards call for more whole grains and produce as well as less sodium and fat in school meals. While the measures mark a step forward from previous years, they still compromise amid push-back from Congress to keep pizza and french fries on the menu -- counting both the tomato paste on pizza and the potatoes that make fries as vegetables.
Still, some schools -- like several in California -- have taken the matter into their own hands, and have found ways to profit from those efforts. Umpteen school districts have taken part in a decade-long initiative, supported by a philanthropic organization, that provides schools with equipments and chefs who teach cafeteria workers to cook from scratch and produce fresh meals.
A recent report by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention revealed that more than a third of high school students were eating vegetables less than once a day -- "considerably below" recommended levels of intake for a healthy lifestyle that supports weight management and could reduce risks for chronic diseases and some cancers.
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Since the Colts released Manning, I can't wait to see where he goes. Someone is about to pick up, one of the best all time.
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